Prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping are important topics at the cause of debating within social psychology. A stereotype is a generalization about a group of people, in which certain traits cling to all members, regardless of actual individual variation (Akert, Aronson, & Wilson, 2010). As humans, people assign objects and individuals into categories to organize the environment. Individuals do this for not only organization, but also survival. Is stereotyping inevitable? That is the question; according to Devine (2007), it is, but Lepore and Brown (2007) have to disagree. Devine believes that “stereotyping is automatic, which makes it inevitable.” On the other hand, Lepore and Brown are not convinced that stereotyping is automatic, and have claimed, after observation, that it depends on the individual.
According to Devine (1989), automatic processing involves the unconscious retrieval of obtained associations that develop through memory repetition; this process links with stimulus cues in the environment. The intense nature of automaticity is that an individual cannot escape or try to ignore the process (Devine, 1989). People build and enforce stereotypes through this automatic process and have no conscious control of memory retrievals. Human bodies take a lot of effort to function, but automatic processing requires little effort. People, therefore, mostly rely on automatic thinking, rather than controlled. This is why some researchers argue that automatic processing is why stereotyping is inevitable; because automaticity is easier, it does not mean controlled thinking cannot disband stereotypes (Devine, 1989). Controlled thinking is intentional and requires active participation of an individual. This proce...
... middle of paper ...
...ocial Psychology, 56(1), 5-18.
Devine, P., Lepore, L., & Brown, R. (2007) Is stereotyping inevitable? Taking Sides: Clashing
Views In Social Psychology (2nd ed.) Nier, Jason A., New York, NY, US: McGraw-Hill.
282-313. [chapter]
Fiske, S. (1989). Examining the role of intent: Toward understanding its role in stereotyping and
prejudice. Unintended Thought 253-283. New York, NY US: Guilford Press.
Pettigrew, T. (1987): “Useful” modes of thought contribute to prejudice. New York Times.
Stewart, T., Latu, I, Kawakami, K., & Myers, A. (2010). Consider the situation: Reducing
automatic stereotyping through situation attribution training. Journal of Experimental
Social Psychology 46, 221-225.
Wheeler, M., & Fiske, S.(2005). Controlling racial prejudice: Social-Cognitive goals affect
amygdala and stereotype activation. Psychological Science, 16, 56-63.
Everyday we experience stereotyping in one way or another. Over the years stereotyping has become such a large part of our society that it is a vital part of our everyday communication. It has caused many of us to not really think about who a person really is, or what they are about, but to accept instead a certain stereotype that has already been created by our society and given to an individual. Stephanie Ericsson makes an excellent point in her essay when she says “they take a single tree, and make it into a landscape.” The statement she was trying to make by saying this is that many times, a stereotype is made by an individual because of something done by one particular person in a certain group, but is then given to the whole group as a result. Our society has given a stereotype to practically every form of human being out there. Some examples of this are the blond that is said to be dumb, the kid with glasse...
The power of stereotypes stored in the brain was a daunting thought. This information enlightened me about the misconceptions we carry from our cultural experiences. Also, it startled me that according to (Banaji and Greenwald, 2013) “those who showed high levels of White Preference on the IAT test were also those who are most likely to show racially discriminatory behavior,” (pg. 47). I reflected on this information, and it concerned me that my judgments were simply based on past cultural experiences. This mindbug was impacting my perception of someone before I even had a chance to know him.
... middle of paper ... ... Even though we can not stop our brain from stereotyping, we can suppress and correct it, because if we don’t, the stereotypes can lead to problems. As Kang proved that we will subconsciously stereotype others, we should still do all we can to stop big, conscious stereotypes from occurring.
Many thoughts come into the mind when hearing the word stereotype. The society has been exposed to too many stereotypes. These stereotypes result in controversial issues, which in turn, affect adults and children. The TV shows, internet, and social media are sources that expose children, as well as the adults, to stereotypes. Examples of those stereotypes are religion, sexism, and race. As children grow up by, the age of four they are able to pick up many stereotypes through those sources and without the perception and knowledge these children carry these stereotypes along with them in their long term memory. Moreover, children are not able to know or distinguish whether those thoughts are negative or positive stereotypes, which in turn, cause
The human race is comprised of a plethora of shapes, sizes, colors, and figures. Some of these images are regarded as ‘distorted’ in dominant culture, but these distortions are what makes every person unique and should be celebrated. Stereotypes, whether positive or negative, take these ‘distortions’ and assign behavioral attributes to them. This assumes that all persons who meet a certain set of physical requirements behave in a similar way. Due to the diversity of the human race, this outcome is highly improbable. Despite this, stereotypes are often used to describe a group of people, usually amplifying a negative trait that may not b...
A stereotype can have multiple meanings, but one of the most prevailing definitions is that it assumes that groups are representable through a consolidated
Assume you’re walking down a street and everywhere you turn you encounter pitch black darkness. You reach a point where you only have two choices; either you go left where there is a group of tattooed muscular black men or you go right where you find a group of well dressed white men. What would you do? Your immediate choice would be to stay clear from the group of black men and that you’d be better off going to the right. What just happened here was that you assumed a certain group of human beings is more likely to cause you harm than the other. From a very young age we start to categorize things in to different groups. We see pencils, pens, erasers and we categorize them in a group and call them ‘stationery’. Similarly we tend to categorize human beings in to different groups and associate certain behaviors or traits with these groups. We have this urge to categorize because it makes us ‘cognitively effective’. When we categorize, we no longer need to consider information about each member of the group; we assume that what holds true for some members must also be true for other members of the group. The act of categorizing human beings is known as stereotyping. The word stereotype has Greek roots; ‘stereos’ meaning firm and ‘typos’ meaning impression hence, ‘Firm Impression’. The word itself implies that we associate certain ‘impressions’ with a group and hold these impressions to be true for most if not each member of the group. Although many leading sociologists and psychologists will have us believe that stereotypes are firmly grounded in reality, the truth is stereotypes exist only because we allow them to; we cause their existence and ultimately perpetuate them because in reality stereotypes are nothing but mere logical fal...
Stereotyping is an adaptive mechanism, adopted by human beings, to assist in the cognitive process of impression formation. Within the social arena, we are subjected to unfamiliar people and places on a regular basis. First impressions are often formed hastily on the basis of very limited information, and assisted by the practice of stereotyping. More specifically, stereotypes can be defined as the cognitive schemas that relate to a particular social group. These cognitive schemas are mental structures that contain knowledge about a particular type of stimulus: attributes, relations, and so on (book). In terms of gendered stereotypes, these schematic structures outline how men and women ought to behave, and contribute to impression formation:
The IAT test follows chapter 13 in the realms of stereotyping, self-fulfilling prophecies, and dispositional attributions. Each assessment forced me to categorize words and symbols, following the definition of stereotyping (categorizing people). Along th...
Stereotyping is Not Inevitable One very controversial topic in the field of social psychology is the debate as to whether stereotyping is inevitable or not. When it comes to the concept of stereotyping, the idea of prejudice often comes up, making it very important to understand the definitions of both stereotyping and prejudice. A stereotype is a “widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing”. In other words, it is a prototypical schema of a person or group. When defining prejudice, the definition is “a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience”, therefore, it can be thought of as an unjustifiable/irrational opinion that someone possesses.
“Two dangers arise when in-group members have little exposure to out-groups members or knowledge of out-group history” (Ramirez-Berg pg. 18). One is that history can be replaced by other group’s experience. Two is the stereotypical image can be taken as normal or even natural. The five functions of stereotyping that are developed and passed on to others. The first two are focused on a personal level. One is cognitive function of the environment. Two is motivational function protecting values. “The remaining three are at group level, where stereotypes contribute to the creation and maintenance of group beliefs which are then used…” (Ramirez-Berg pg. 28). Three is explaining in a large-scale social event. Four is to justify action. Five is to differentiate in and out
Stereotyping is a form of pre judgement that is as prevalent in today's society as it was 2000 years ago. It is a social attitude that has stood the test of time and received much attention by social psychologists and philosophers alike. Many approaches to, or theories of stereotyping have thus been raised. This essay evaluates the cognitive approach that categorisation is an essential cognitive process that inevitably leads to stereotyping. Hamilton (1979) calls this a 'depressing dilemma'.
Human brains, for the sake of processing information efficiently, use a shortcut known as social categorization. Humans categorize people into different groups based on common features. The three primary social categories for humans are: sex, race, and age (Yoder, 2013). Although categorizing is helpful during life experiences, there’s a negative backlash to compartmentalizing human-beings. The backlash lies in the small leap between categorizing and stereotyping. Stereotyping is used much in the way of categorizing, in that, we simplify complex information, organize, and store the data we collect. The difference between categorizing and stereotyping is when human’s stereotype they ascribe certain attributes to particular individuals within a group based on perceived affiliation with said group (APA, 1991). Once the stereotype has been formed, an increased level of expectation arises, which influences human behavior, that then reinforces the stereotype creating a circle of negative attitudes. These negative attitudes give way to sex discrimination; ...
Most people find stereotypes to be obnoxious, especially when they have to do with sensitive subjects like gender or race. “Stereotyping is a generalization about a group or category of people that can have a powerful influence on how we perceive others and their communication behaviors” (Floyd, 61). Because they underestimate the differences among individuals in a group, stereotyping can lead to inaccurate and offensive perceptions of other people. Although stereotypes are prevalent in almost every society, becoming aware of our perceptions of others, as well as differentiating between both positive and negative stereotypes can help us overcome those stereotypes.
People may say that there is no time or place where holding a stereotype or stereotyping is permissible. I would disagree with that statement by saying yes, some stereotyping is wrong but not all forms are. In this essay I will be delving into the social aspect of stereotyping and touching on how not all forms of social stereotyping are harmful and show how in some cases they are even justifiable.